


The Fox and the Hound

by ardberts



Series: The Fox and the Hound [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love/Hate, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardberts/pseuds/ardberts
Summary: There she was, dragging her feet behind him, idly stepping in each of the large impressions he left in the snow as he strode in front of her. Every so often, she noticed his head turn ever so slightly to the side to check if she was still following and, each time he did, she noticed the corners of his lips stir, as if fighting back a smile.Everything had been a fight when it came to Arthur.





	The Fox and the Hound

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, yes, I did rip off a line from The Last of Us, but I also started writing this before I had any intention of posting it anywhere.
> 
> This is the first fic I've written since my Dragon Age days and it's in a style I don't normally write in, so please be kind. :)
> 
> This takes place in 1891 (8 years before RDR2) and if you're confused about the timeline, don't worry, I'm planning to put up a reference somewhere.

 

 

 

 

_you have suffered enough  
_ _and warred with yourself  
_ _it's time that you won._

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Wynona's footsteps were soft and silent as she quietly followed Arthur along the snowy riverbank, the cold, crisp nighttime air nipping at her glove-less fingertips. Freshly fallen snow pooled around her boots and she tugged her coat closed tighter, happy, at least, that there was no breeze. The soundless, still river at night would have seemed eerie to her had it not been for the nearly full moon bathing the area in pale white light.

That night was to become only one line on Wynona's ever-growing laundry list of moments that did nothing to help solve the mystery that was Arthur Morgan, who had woken her from a dreamless sleep not twenty minutes ago and dragged her out of bed with nothing to say except for, "Come with me."

When she wearily tried to ask him what the hell couldn't wait until the next morning, he silenced her with a single finger pressed to his lips and tossed her coat at her haphazardly. He seemed excited about something, or at least, she _thought_ he seemed excited about something by the way his shoulders evenly rested, his chest almost puffed with pride. Perhaps tonight was the night he finally decided to drag her into the wilderness and leave her. That definitely sounded like something Arthur would be excited about, Wynona thought.

So, there she was, dragging her feet behind him, idly stepping in each of the large impressions he left in the snow as he strode in front of her. Every so often, she noticed his head turn ever so slightly to the side to check if she was still following and, each time he did, she noticed the corners of his lips stir, as if fighting back a smile.

Everything had been a fight when it came to Arthur.

"That's just Arthur," John had told her for what seemed like the thousandth time, though he seemed to grit his teeth more and more each instance. Wynona couldn't help but be unsatisfied with this answer, and had to finally admit that, as great a companion as he was, John lacked imagination.

"It is not 'just Arthur,'" she had replied, folding her arms tightly across her chest as she mentally cited each time the man had greeted a fellow gang member and frowned. "He hasn't said a damn word to me since I got here."

John groaned, exasperated, and Wynona felt only a slight twinge of guilt for having annoyed him. "Look, Arthur is Arthur. He's been like that ever since I got here." He paused for a moment. "You're bein' a real woman about this."

Wynona had shot him an icy glare that could have turned him stone. "I'm gonna let that pass just this one time, John Marston."

"All I'm sayin' is, why do you care?"

She didn't, or, well, she liked to think she didn't.

The truth was Arthur was both fascinating and irritating and she hadn't quite put her finger on why his silence bothered her so much. Perhaps it was simply the idea of a challenge. After all, everyone else at the camp had spoken to her at least once and a couple of them had even brought her out hunting or on small heists. If she could be amiable with the rest of the crew, why not Arthur? What made him so different, or made her so repellent to him?

Perhaps it was his lack of approval. To his credit, Wynona had to admit, he hadn't expressed his disapproval of her either, but that had seemed even more unsatisfying. Even after they had robbed that saloon in Twin Ford, he had said nothing, just stood there, kicking at the dirt with his boot, one hand resting on his belt as Dutch clapped them all on the back for a job well done.

Or perhaps it was something completely different, perhaps there was something innate, almost primal that drew her curiosity. While Wynona hadn't been able to share two words with the man, she had, on occasion, caught his eye, a difficult enough task for any average person as he kept his face half-shadowed below the brim of his hat. However, on those rare occasions when she had caught Arthur's glance, she had been the first to look away, cheeks warm and chest hollow, wondering if she had been the only person to notice the piercing, near inexpressible pain in his eyes.

Whatever the reason behind the man's pointed silence towards her was, it sure as hell was frustrating.

"It's just a bit further up the river now." Arthur's gravelly baritone snapped Wynona out of her thoughts back into the present, and she was thankful he did not glance back to see her startle.

"All right, then," was all she huffed in response, wrapping her arms around herself tighter and sighing. She took a moment to watch her breath, a warm puff of fog, as it disappeared into the icy air around them.

He was absolutely planning to leave her out there.

Up until that point in her life, Wynona had gotten on the bad side of nearly everyone she had encountered and, most of the time, she had done so without even trying to. Being picked up by Dutch Van Der Linde and his gang had somehow turned out to be one of the best things that had happened to her, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that, somehow, she would screw it up. She simply wasn't the type to leave things alone.

One summer afternoon while Wynona had been tending to her horse, a black fox trotter bought with the money she had earned off her first score with the gang, she noticed a book lying forgotten on the ground.. Thinking the hitching posts were a peculiar place to leave a book, Wynona tucked her brush into her stallion's saddlebag and bent down to snatch it.

Its cover was brown, worn leather with a brass clasp. She turned it over in one hand, frowning at its lack of a title or any other distinguishing features. With her free hand, she reached up and quickly flicked open the clasp, scanning the inside covers for anything useful. The first page was blank but turning it revealed handwritten notes, journal entries scrawled in what she had to admit was fairly decent handwriting.

It soon dawned on Wynona that this journal probably fell out of the pocket of one of the men who had gone out that morning on a job, which meant it must have belonged to either John, Hosea - or Arthur.

Wynona chewed her lip, conflicted - she was wise enough to know that journals were especially sacred as they contained a person's internal monologue, private thoughts that were never meant to be spoken aloud, but she also knew she couldn't return the thing without knowing to whom it belonged. All three of her suspects could read and write, she thought to herself, Hosea had taught them.

Well, John could write but Wynona knew for a fact that he wasn't nearly introspective enough to keep a journal (and she doubted his handwriting could be anywhere near legible), which left Hosea and Arthur. Hosea absolutely seemed the type to keep a journal. He was well-spoken and well-mannered, and he was definitely the most creative when it came to planning. And Arthur...

Wynona sighed, knowing that while there was a very strong possibility the journal did belong to Arthur, he was so rough around the edges and gruff in demeanor that she couldn't imagine him doing something as postured as writing. She did remember that look in his eyes, though.

It was Hosea's journal, Wynona had told herself as she thumbed through its first few pages. It had to be Hosea's journal. All she needed was an entry that mentioned Arthur's name to confirm her suspicions.

She had spent the next couple minutes scanning the journal's pages, trying her best not read too much. Luckily, most of the written entries themselves had been pretty mundane and what surprised her the most was how decent the accompanying sketches were. She felt the corners of her lips tug into a small smile as she found herself endeared by a drawing of a particularly fuzzy bear cub before turning the page and finding an entry written much less deliberately than the others. Her face fell.

_Went to visit Eliza and Isaac today_  
_Found their graves_  
~~_I wish  
_ ~~ ~~_If I had been a better man  
_ ~~ _Hosea says he'll ask around town what happened_

Wynona quickly snapped the journal shut and swore, fastening its lock before dropping it back onto the ground and taking a step away from it. She drummed her fingernails into her palms, feeling very much like she had overstayed her welcome at a home where she was never invited. It was Arthur's.

She quickly turned her head towards the rest of the camp. No one had noticed her pick up the journal, let alone drop it again, and she had half a mind to leave it where she had found it. However, the thought of someone else coming across it struck a chord with her and, inhaling sharply, she bent back down and gingerly picked Arthur's journal up off the ground. It felt heavier and more fragile than it had before.

Against the very best of her judgment, Wynona reopened the book's clasp, quickly flipping to the last entry she had read. Below its scrawled sentences was a drawing of two mounds of dirt, wooden crosses stuck into them as monuments. As she lightly traced the line work with her index finger, her heart grew heavy. One of the mounds was much smaller than the other.

Before she had had another minute to think, Wynona's ears perked to the distant sound of horses galloping towards the camp. Panicking, knowing it had to be John, Hosea, and Arthur returning to camp, she spun on her heel and began making her way to the wooden table by the fire, stuffing the journal into her back pocket and untucking her shirt to further conceal it.

"You alright, Miss Ledger?" she heard Dutch ask her as she stumbled over a bale of hay near his tent.

"Fine, Mister Van Der Linde!" Wynona had replied as perkily as she could. "Damn hay bales been movin' on their own again!"

To her relief, she heard Dutch chuckle to himself.

Wynona took a seat the table, exhaling slowly to calm herself while idly picking at splinters in the wood's surface. She wasn't entirely sure why she felt so guilty. After all, she hadn't been snooping purposefully or with any ill intent. She had just needed to know who the journal belonged to so she could return it. Her chest hollowed just thinking of the last page she had read - she knew something she was not supposed to know, or at least, that she was not supposed to find out through the casual perusal of Arthur's private journal.

The sun had started to set by the time John, Hosea, and Arthur finished hitching their horses. Wynona glanced up from her seat as Arthur and Hosea dipped into Dutch's tent, presumably to give their report. John lagged behind them, dropping a few bills into the steel box Dutch kept outside the tent before striding over to Wynona, grabbing a bottle of beer from a wooden crate by the fire on his way.

Wynona wracked her brain for the best way to present the situation, but found that continuing to pick at the table's splinters was more comforting. She heard John clear his throat and glanced up at him, leaning back and folding her hands in her lap. She then became keenly aware of her hair in her face and moved a hand to brush it behind her ear before replacing it on top of the other. Opening her mouth to speak, Wynona unclasped her hands and placed them on the table for a moment before retracting them again.

"What is wrong with you?" John asserted, a look of confusion etched upon his brow. Wynona let out a groan of frustration and finally glanced back at him, reaching across the table, grabbing the beer out of his hands, and taking a big swig.

"I have a problem," she had replied calmly, returning the bottle to her now disgruntled friend and sitting back properly in her seat. Before John could protest, Wynona had launched into her story.

"So, you gonna return it?" John asked after she had finished, taking a sip of his half-empty beer.

Wynona frowned. "Of course I'm gonna return it. I'm just tryin' to figure out what to say. I had to read some of it to figure out whose it was."

"Anything good?" John's tone had been nonchalant, almost bored as he stared down the neck of his beer bottle, swinging it gently between his thumb and forefinger.

Wynona's shrugged. "Nothin' much. A couple drawings of some animals." She paused, unsure of whether or not to chart the new territory she had discovered. "Who are Eliza and Isaac?"

John dropped his bottle to the table with a clunk, and Wynona straightened up in her seat. His expression had softened and he was somber in his reply.

"That's Arthur's business to tell," he told her. "If you wanna know, you gotta ask him, though I reckon you shouldn't."

"Why not?"

Wynona looked up at him earnestly as he rose from the table, watching as he tilted his head back to pour the remainder of his beer into his mouth before tossing the bottle away.

"John," Wynona pressed.

"Look at it this way," John had said as he turned to retreat towards his tent. "'Least you'll finally get a word out of him."

Wynona had been leaning against the canopy composing Arthur's tent for what felt like hours, idly toying with the tip of her knife as the journal burnt a hole in her back pocket. Commotion around the camp had died down and most people had begun to turn in for the night. It wasn't long before all Wynona could hear were summertime crickets and the muffled conversation coming from Dutch's tent.

At long last, Hosea and Arthur emerged, and Wynona tucked her knife away as she watched the two men bade each other good night. It didn't take long for Arthur to notice her standing in front of his sleeping area and Wynona became mindful of her heartbeat, feeling much like what she assumed a deer would feel like in the face of a loaded rifle. In her head, she knew the smartest way to go about this would be to keep things short and sweet, but wisdom had never been her strong suit.

Arthur had only paused for a moment, his eyes catching hers for a split second before he shoved a hand into his pocket and continued his stride. Wynona watched as he withdrew a cigarette and placed it between his lips before striking a match on the side of his jeans. He took a moment to light up and take a drag before putting out the match and flicking it away.

"You need something, Miss Ledger?" Arthur had asked as he approached. Wynona thought he already sounded annoyed and noticed that he seemed to be doing his best to look past her.

All that waiting and Wynona still hadn't been quite sure what to say. Now that he was there and now that she had finally forced him into a conversation, she suddenly felt like she didn't want to talk, but she had trapped them both.

"I found this by the horses," Wynona replied after finally finding her voice. She reached back and withdrew the brown journal from her pocket, presenting it to him with a surprisingly steady hand. For a moment, they both stood there, the journal stuck between them like a boulder in a stream. Wynona did her best to read the expression on Arthur's face but the man was an uncharted map.

Before Wynona could break the silence once more, Arthur took one last drag of his cigarette before flicking it away and grabbing the journal roughly from her hands. Without a word, he brushed past her and under the canopy of his living quarters. Wynona quickly withdrew, folding her arms across her chest and then, gritting her teeth and blowing out her cheeks, she followed him.

She watched as he tossed the journal onto his cot with a heavy sigh. There was an air of discomfort in his voice when he noticed she hadn't left.

"What're you doin'?"

"I'm not done," Wynona had stated, searching for his gaze and regretting finding it as she noticed the thin, agitated line across his mouth. "I had to read some of it-"

"What's that?"

"- to figure out who owned it." Her brow knitted with concern when Arthur's expression did not soften, having thought that her reasoning was fairly understandable.

"I thought it was Hosea's at first," Wynona continued, rooted to the spot and suddenly very wary of the short distance between them. "Until I read about Eliza and Isaac--"

Arthur's reaction had been swift, closing the gap between them in one quick stride. Wynona recognized the power shift immediately, punctuated by the hand he shot past her ear to grip the canopy post by her head, knuckles white, blocking her exit. It was a form of intimidation with which she had been familiar and she hated how well it worked. She did her best to stand her ground, eyes narrowed, frustrated with herself for feeling so incredibly small beneath Arthur's hulking form.

"You are treading on some mighty thin ice here," he breathed in a low growl that made Wynona's jaw clench. She hoped he hadn't noticed.

"You ain't alone." Wynona's voice was steady. "I've lost people too."

"And what? You thought that made us pals?"

"That ain't what I--"

"You don't know the first thing about me."

"Well, you don't know me either." Wynona could feel his breath on her face but was unflinching, boring into his eyes with her own. Her bravado must have been convincing enough because Arthur backed off, albeit slowly and still glowering at her.

"And I'd like to keep it that way."

"Arthur."

"It's 'Mister Morgan,' girl," Arthur stated sternly as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wooden crate of belongings by his bed. His voice had been a distant, rolling thunder storm and the retort Wynona had primed fell away from her lips. She could sense the wall he had hurled between them, and her attempt to break it down had left barely a chip in its stone.

"Fine," Wynona replied heatedly - if that's the game he wanted to play, she sure as hell wasn't going to let him win.  "Well, then, Mister Morgan, I sure am sorry I read your stupid book. I hope you have a good night."

She turned leave but paused to look at him just once more. He was still watching her from his spot against the crate, his gaze sharp and matching her own.

"You know, I was jealous of the people talkin' to you," Wynona said coolly, brow set as she gave Arthur a glaring once-over. "Now I'm jealous of the ones who ain't."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Miss!" she had heard him call out after her as she stormed off.

The following months had been a nightmare. Since their silence had been broken, Arthur had taken it upon himself to hound Wynona for everything, from sleeping in too late to setting her meal tray down too loudly to hitching her horse too closely to his own. As the weather turned cold, Wynona had even been nagged for not wearing a heavy enough coat. It had been agitating to the point that Wynona found herself wishing, often and as loudly as she could, that he'd go back to not speaking to her.

She finally snapped one crisp morning by the camp fire as a sharp jolt to the back of her shoulder knocked her off balance, spilling the contents of the coffee cup she had been nursing. Wynona whirled around furiously, watching Arthur amble away without so much as an "excuse me." Without a second thought, she had lunged at him, tossing her half-empty cup to the ground with a clang, and yelling all manner of obscenities in his direction. Had John not been nearby to yank her back by the waist, Wynona was sure she'd have ripped Arthur's head clean off his shoulders.

Only after Wynona had calmed down (and woken up the rest of the camp) did John release her, allowing her to retreat back into her tent, where she had remained for almost a week, emerging only at meal times. This turn of events had made the rest of the camp begin to grumble, and a couple times Wynona had overheard John telling Susan to lay off about her pulling her weight.

If Arthur's plan had been to make her miserable, he had succeeded and then some, Wynona thought to herself as she pulled her knees tightly to her chest, hot, angry tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. She had been made into an outcast again, she had felt inconvenient, and she was worried it was beginning to feel normal.

She only wished Arthur had saved himself the trouble of staying up all night to drag her out into the wilderness -- she'd have run away eventually if he had only waited.

Still lost in thought, Wynona almost failed to notice Arthur had stopped in his tracks, coming to a halt herself mere moments before she'd have collided straight into his back. She peered quietly around his broad shoulders, wondering what caused him to pause but seeing nothing aside from the freshly iced-over river and a small grove of thick, blade-less pine trees situated closer to the water than the rest of the treeline.

"Why're we--"

"Shhh!"

Wynona was growing impatient. Feeling heat beginning to rise to her cheeks, she huffed, "This is ridiculous."

"Will you shut up?" Arthur whispered sharply. He crouched down and nodded toward the offset grove of trees, reaching up to yank Wynona by the elbow until she followed suit. She shivered as the snow bit through her clothes and nipped at her skin, but crankily obliged.

"So, is this what happens when you piss off one of you Van Der Lindes?" Wynona asked somewhat sullenly, eyes flitting sideways to read Arthur's face. "You gonna leave me here?"

His expression was one of genuine incredulity. "What? No-- No one's leavin' you out here. The hell gave you that idea?"

"Well, what am I supposed to think?" Wynona spat, a bitter edge in her voice. "I mean, you ain't been nothin' but a bastard to me for weeks."

"And you think that everyone who's mean to you is just gonna drag you into the woods to die?"

Wynona's brow furrowed at Arthur's words. It did seem pretty nonsensical when he said it aloud.

"What is it then?" she asked icily. "Because I am tired and I am cold and--"

"Goddamn it, woman, would you shut up and let me apologize?"

Wynona looked up at him, eyebrows raised and lips slightly parted. Before she could respond, Arthur lifted a finger towards the grove of pines at the edge of the treeline. Wynona's eyes narrowed, but she turned to look in the direction he pointed without another word.

At first, she saw nothing but continued to remain still as Arthur slowly lowered his hand to rest on his knee. Seconds passed silently by, and then a minute before finally, she saw it. There was movement beneath the trees. As its source began to emerge, a pair of moonlit eyes flashed in their direction and Wynona toyed with the idea of it being a wolf before shaking her head, reminding herself that people don't typically apologize to others by having them mauled.

"Atta girl," Wynona heard Arthur whisper under his breath before attempting to coax the animal towards them with a few rapid clicks of his tongue.

Wynona watched as the creature emerged from the grove, a small gasp escaping her lungs as she recognized what it was -- stark and ghost-like, its coat matching the snow almost perfectly. It was a white fox.

Unable to help it, a small smile began to spread across Wynona's face as the fox paced its way briskly across the snow toward where she and Arthur knelt. She was completely enraptured by the sight of it, having seen quite a few foxes in her life but never one so pure in the wild.

"She's very friendly," Arthur breathed as the fox approached them, reaching out a hand for it to sniff before scratching it gently behind the ears. Wynona did the same, grinning in delight as the fox allowed her to pet it, all thoughts of how they got there and how cold it was melting away. She tilted her head toward Arthur and was surprised to see he was smiling as well, his blue eyes warm and crinkling at the edges. She became very aware of the thudding in her chest as his gaze fixed upon hers for a brief moment before he cleared his throat and turned away, reaching up to rub the back of his head where ash brown hair met the sun worn skin of his neck.

"It reminded me of you," he spoke quietly, nodding at the fox as it pried itself away from Wynona's hand and slowly circled them, sniffing occasionally.

"Clever, impish, and mindful?" she teased, still grinning.

"Young, overly familiar, and stupid," Arthur replied with a snort. "Did you really think I was gonna leave you out here in the snow?"

Wynona shrugged, her smile faltering just slightly as the white fox, having grown bored of their company, began trotting back to its grove. "I don't know anything about you, Mister Morgan."

She watched as he stood up, towering over her as he dusted the snow from his jeans before extending an open hand towards her.

"'Arthur' is just fine," he said.

They began heading back to camp, side by side this time, in relative silence though the thick tension that had followed them there had dissipated. Wynona began to notice how cold it was again and assumed Arthur had as well since he had his hands shoved into both pockets of his coat.

The dim lanterns of their camp had only just come into view when next they spoke.

"Eliza was a waitress I met a few years back," Arthur explained, seemingly masking any pain with indifference as he kept eyes on the ground before them. "I used to bring her and her son -- our son -- money every now and then, tried to help where I could. They were -- well, you read the rest."

There was an ache in Wynona's chest as he spoke, a key twisting as it unlocked a piece of the puzzle she had so badly wanted to solve. "I'm so sorry, Arthur."

She turned to search his face and found him watching her, almost expectantly, as if to tell her it was her turn.

On queue, Wynona cleared her throat. "There was a boy in my -- well, my mother's tribe. He was the only one who'd hunt with me. One day while we were out, a bear -- I guess I didn't react quickly enough and it got him. A few days later, he died and I ran."

Arthur sniffed, exhaling a warm haze of fog into the crisp nighttime air. "Well, what do you know," he replied gruffly, more statement than question. "I guess that did make us pals."

When Wynona finally got back into bed that night, she breathed a long, slow sigh of relief as she watched the candle in her tent slowly melt and flicker into darkness. Her thoughts were at ease for the first time in months, and, as she replayed the night over again in her head, she allowed herself to believe that maybe, just maybe she could belong here.

As her eyes fluttered closed, she was only vaguely aware of a new yearning in her heart, circling in her dreams and flitting lithely against her chest -- like the tail of a fox.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading! This fic was basically a set-up/framework for the rest of the pieces I'm planning to write about these two idiots, and I'd love to hear what you thought. <3 
> 
> The next one will be from Arthur's POV~


End file.
